More than three-dozen Arizona state lawmakers have signed onto legislation meant to free the state of all regulations imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency.
In seeking to nullify the EPA’s rules, the bill cites the Tenth Amendment, which holds which holds that powers not delegated to the federal government are “reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
The argument has increasingly been used – albeit unsuccessfully – to contest a variety of federal regulations.
Late last year, Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and eight other Senate Republicans introduced legislation that would give states the right to challenge federal regulations they believe violate the Tenth Amendment.
The Arizona legislation contends that the EPA’s rulemaking power, “is not authorized by the Constitution of the United States and violates its true meaning and intent as given by the founders and ratifiers.”
Thirty-seven members of the state’s legislature are backing the bill, which was introduced this week.